Monday 30 March 2009

AGILE Initiative - Spatial Data Access Survey

Higher and Further Education in the UK already has access to a significant quantity of mapping and spatial data from Ordnance Survey via the Digimap agreement. EDINA is conducting a survey in order to understand more about current academic access to maps and data from other national mapping agencies (i.e. the European equivalents of Ordnance Survey) in other European countries. While we are happy for Digimap users to complete the survey, you can help us further by passing this link on to friends and colleagues within Higher or Further Education elsewhere in Europe: http://tinyurl.com/NMCAUserSurvey Please read on for more details.

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Are you are a teacher, lecturer or researcher at a Higher Education Institution in Europe?

Do you use geospatial data (maps, aerial photography, satellite imagery etc.)?

http://tinyurl.com/NMCAUserSurvey


What is the purpose of this survey?
The purpose of this survey is to find out how easy it is for you, as a teacher or researcher, to gain access to the geospatial data sets held by the National Mapping and Cadastral Agency or Agencies in your country. Europe’s Network of National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies (NMCAs) hold and maintain the majority of Europe’s ‘core’ geospatial information including:

  • topographic data;

  • cadastral information;

  • aerial photography; and

  • land use information and historical map data.


We believe that Higher Education in Europe should be an important market for the NMCAs, as there are around 4,000 Higher Education institutions, with over 17 million students and 1.5 million staff.

With your help, we hope to find out how easy it is to access these data. We will use this information to encourage more NMCAs to make their data available to teachers and researchers in Higher Education across Europe. Our goal is to help you gain access to the quality geospatial data that you need.

Who is carrying out the survey?
Our research team is part of the EDINA National Data Centre, based in the University of Edinburgh, UK. The survey has been endorsed by the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories for Europe (AGILE) and EuroGeographics, which represents 52 National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies from 43 countries across Europe.

When will the survey finish?
The survey will be open for you to complete until Tuesday 21st April 2009.

During this time we would like your help to get as many teachers and researchers as possible to complete the survey. So, once you have completed the survey, please pass on the email and web link to this survey.

How do I complete the survey?
The survey can be found at http://tinyurl.com/NMCAUserSurvey

Who should I contact for more information?
If you have any questions please contact: Dr David Medyckyj-Scott, by email at edina.surveys@ed.ac.uk

Friday 20 March 2009

Reminder: April Digimap Training

This is a reminder that there are still spaces available on the following Digimap training courses, open to staff members (and postgraduates for the OS MasterMap courses) in UK higher and further education institutions:

  • Digimap Collections: 31 March-2 April 2009 - Leeds University
  • OS MasterMap for Users: 22 April 2009 - York University
The following courses will be offered but booking is not yet open:
  • Digimap Essentials: 4 June 2009 - Bilborough College, Nottingham
  • Digimap Collections: 9-11 June 2009 - Exeter University
You will find listings and booking forms (where open) for these and all other EDINA training events here: http://edina.ac.uk/events/ These courses are free of charge. Regretfully, however, we will charge £25.00 per person for each day of absence of which EDINA is not given prior notice. This is due to the increasing number of no-shows at courses.

Note that all attendees MUST be registered users of Digimap's Ordnance Survey Collection in order to participate in the OS MasterMap training.

Wednesday 18 March 2009

OS MasterMap: CoU release on 24 March

The next release of Change-only Update data for OS MasterMap will be put into service on Tuesday 24 March 2009. The currency date of the new data will be 20 January 2009.*

Change-only Update (CoU) applies only to the OS MasterMap data. It does not apply to any other data product.

EDINA collates all the data changes released by Ordnance Survey over a 6-month period, and makes these available through Digimap approximately every 6 months. The previous update was released in September 2008.

What is the point of Change-only Update?
Change-only Updates enable you to update your data holding without needing to store multiple copies or versions of the same data. By taking only the changes to the data you hold you can minimise the storage requirements for your data, while still maintaining an up-to-date dataset. This is particularly useful if you are studying changes to an area over time.

Most users will not need Change-only Update. CoU is only useful to you if you already have a full copy of the original data to which you can apply the changes.


How do I download CoU?
You can download Change-only Updates only for data orders you have already submitted within Digimap's Mastermap Download facility. Go to the Your Account page within Mastermap Download and scroll down to the table of Orders.

Table of Orders already submitted

You will see a list of all your previous Orders, and in the final column you will see whether or not CoU is available for that Order.

If CoU is available, click the radio button in the far left column for the Order you require. Below this table, you will see two buttons in a blue box:

Request Change-only Update buttonClick the first button to Order Change-only Update. The data file will be delivered in the usual way: you will receive one email to say your Order has been received and is being processed, and a second email to say your data is ready for collection.

If you submit a new order for OS MasterMap data, by defining the Layer, Themes and your chosen area, you will automatically receive the latest version of the data; this will include all the latest changes. Change-only Update will therefore not be available for such an Order until the next batch of CoU is released.

Example
You submit an Order for data on 20 March 2009. In the Orders table under Your Account, the Order details say that CoU is not available. This is because you already have the latest version of the data.

If you submit a second Order for data on 27 March 2009, you will also see that the order details say that CoU is not available. Again, you have the latest version of the data; it includes the changes which were released on 24 March.

If you go back to look at your first Order (submitted on 20 March) on 2 April 2009, you will see that COU is now vailable for this Order. This is because the changes released on 24 March are now available; they were not available when you submitted the original order.


* Although the latest update is dated 20 January 2009, it takes time for Ordnance Survey to process and release these data, to send them out to EDINA and for EDINA to process and load the data into the database. This accounts for the time delay between the "freeze date" of the database (20 January 2009) and the release date (24 March 2009).